Dana Goes Full Will Smith, Power Slap’s PFL’s Numbers
Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
Donn Davis — founder of Professional Fighters League (PFL) — was proud to boast the “massive” metric numbers that last weekend’s “Battle of the Giants” pay-per-view (PPV) event — which featured the explosive debut of Francis Ngannou — produced for the promotion.
Prior to the event, Davis proclaimed that the landmark event would be bigger than Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) event at The Sphere with UFC 306, which cost the promotion over $16 million to stage. While “Battle of the Giants” did manage to do well, UFC CEO, Dana White, has a message for Davis, going full Will Smith on him during a recent Power Slap press conference.
“First of all, the PFL should keep the UFC out of their mouth. They can’t even deal with Power Slap. Power Slap destroys PFL. And it’s weird you ask me that question because I just happen to have some papers here,” he said before rattling off some numbers of his own that he just happened to have nearby in relation to Power Slap 9, which went down earlier today in Abu Dhabi.
“Powerslap has 19.2 million followers, PFL has 10 million. Video views: PFL fight week did 326 million, Power Slap 8 did 690 million. PFL fight week Instagram views, 76 million. For Power Slap 9, just the week of, they had 68 million on Power Slap, and we hadn’t even had a fight yet. PFL’s reel with Francis and Ronaldo did 14 million views. Power Slap’s Instagram reel with contender Isaih has 22 million views. And that was a re-post of an old fight. The re-post of an old fight beat Francis and Ronaldo,” he proclaimed.
“I can keep going on for a fucking month here. And then if you want to get in on what he said about the UFC, I have a laundry list here. But let me just start with this: UFC Vegas 84 at the Apex beat them. So listen, I understand and I love the stuff that he said...he sounds like Kamala (Harris). He talks a lot but says nothing, and I would hate to be one of that guy’s investors,” he added.
“But that guy shouldn’t even mention the UFC. He’s not even in Power Slap’s...then today he was talking about how ‘there’s all kinds of combination packages and stuff how this works.’ He doesn’t beat Power Slap in revenue. He doesn’t beat Power Slap in ticket sales. He doesn’t beat Power Slap in sponsorship. He doesn’t beat Power Slap in anything, let alone the UFC.”
Will Smith, Dana White, slapping, it all goes hand-in-hand...literally and figuratively.
It’s not very often that White goes after PFL, but the outspoken CEO of the biggest mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion in the world had time today, and he came out with full force and numbers to back it up.
Your move, PFL.
